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It appears on Sunday news.I believe it would be a great news especially for the bottom of table club such as Wigan, Bolton, Sunderland, Stoke fan.They can expect to watch every match. Hahahahah

Astro planning to beam all 380 games of upcoming season

KUALA LUMPUR: For the first time, Astro All Asia Networks (Astro) is planning to beam all 380 English Premier League games of the upcoming 2010/11 season live into the homes of its sports package subscribers.

After the month-long FIFA World Cup “live” galore, the stage is now being set for a Barclays Premier League (BPL) “feast”.

The move will be significant, if it comes through, as only 120 BPL matches are shown live over a season, even in England.

Astro CEO Datuk Rohana Rozhan, who disclosed this to The Star, said the network was preparing to broadcast all BPL games live.

This would mean that local supporters of the lower-ranked teams in the BPL would get to see their teams in action every week.

The spotlight is now on glamour teams – Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool – with six matches shown live over the weekend and four delayed telecasts.

“Our aim is to show all 380 matches live. We’ll decide from those matches which teams to broadcast in HD (high definition).

“The big games will be shown in HD and maybe some in 3D,” Rohana said.

Rohana said the BPL matches would be aired over ESPN, StarSports, SuperSports 1 and SuperSports 2.

She said that Astro was also planning to create a SuperSports 3 channel for the purpose.

“Some matches would be streamed online as well as on Astro Arena, to allow access to our three million subscribers,’’ she added.

Rohana said there would be no issue over broadcast rights as Astro and ESPN StarSports had been successful after making a joint bid.

On whether there would be an increase in the sports package monthly subscription charges, Rohana said that would be “the last consideration.”

“We have to understand the fact that we have to make it affordable and customers must see value in that. Now we have to balance it against content cost,” she said.

Sixty per cent of Astro’s 2.94 million subscriber base are subscribers of the sports package, with RM66.95 being the minimum charge.

As for the other major European football leagues, Astro will air four matches each from the Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga live each weekend, while Spanish Serie A fans will get to enjoy five live matches.